when it is nakedly considered, and
those matters which are apt to divert our attention from it, the
characters, actions, and designs of the persons concerned, are not taken
into the account. These wars, I mean those called the Punic wars, could
not have stood the human race in less than three millions of the
species. And yet this forms but a part only, and a very small part, of
the havoc caused by the Roman ambition. The war with Mithridates was
very little less bloody; that prince cut off at one stroke 150,000
Romans by a massacre. In that war Sylla destroyed 300,000 men at
Cheronea. He defeated Mithridates' army under Dorilaus, and slew
300,000. This great and unfortunate prince lost another 300,000 before
Cyzicum. In the course of the war he had innumerable other losses; and
having many intervals of success, he revenged them severely. He was at
last totally overthrown; and he crushed to pieces the king of Armenia,
his ally, by the greatness of his ruin. All who had connections with him
shared the same fate. The merciless genius of Sylla had its full scope;
and the streets of Athens were not the only ones which ran with blood.
At this period, the sword, glutted with foreign slaughter, turned its
edge upon the bowels of the Roman republic itself; and presented a scene
of cruelties and treasons enough almost to obliterate the memory of all
the external devastations. I intended, my lord, to have proceeded in a
sort of method in estimating the numbers of mankind cut off in these
wars which we have on record. But I am obliged to alter my design. Such
a tragical uniformity of havoc and murder would disgust your lordship as
much as it would me; and I confess I already feel my eyes ache by
keeping them so long intent on so bloody a prospect. I shall observe
little on the Servile, the Social, the Gallic, and Spanish wars; nor
upon those with Jugurtha, nor Antiochus, nor many others equally
important, and carried on with equal fury. The butcheries of Julius
Caesar alone are calculated by somebody else; the numbers he has been the
means of destroying have been reckoned at 1,200,000. But to give your
lordship an idea that may serve as a standard, by which to measure, in
some degree, the others; you will turn your eyes on Judea; a very
inconsiderable spot of the earth in itself, though ennobled by the
singular events which had their rise in that country.

This spot happened, it matters not here by what means, to become at
several